GENEVA / CHINA HUMAN RIGHTS

13-Aug-2018
00:02:41

China rejected the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s allegation that the State party had turned the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region into “something that resembled a massive internment camp shrouded in secrecy, a no rights zone.” UNTV CH

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2. Wide shot, meeting
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Gay Mcdougall, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Co-Rapporteur for China:
“We are deeply concerned at the many numerous and credible reports that we have received that in the name of combatting religious extremism and maintaining social stability, the state party has turned the Uyghur Autonomous Region into something that resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy, a sort of a no rights zone, and that members of the Uyghur minority, along with others who are identified as Muslim, are being treated as enemies of the State based solely on their ethno-religious identity.”
4. Med shot, chairperson dais

13 AUGUST 2018, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

5. SOUNDBITE (Chinese) Lianhe Hu, The United Front Work Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) General Committee:
“The allegation that millions of Uyghur people were imprisoned in the re-education centre is completely not true. The government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region guarantees its citizens’ rights to have religious freedom, and guarantees the exercise of religious activities. Xinjing is an autonomous region that has its own right to establish regional laws based on its regional situation. Xinjiang keeps its fight against terrorism, extremism, and separatism. It disagrees with targeting specific ethnic groups in the context of anti-terrorism, anti-extremism, anti-separatism specifically.”
6. Med shot, chairperson dais
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Gay Mcdougall, Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Co-Rapporteur for China:
“To say that they don’t violate the rights of minorities and detainees does not prove anything. We have to have more than a denial of the allegations. I heard a flat denial of the allegation about detention in the Uyghur area, but I didn’t hear, you said that I was false, the millions, then, how many were there? Please tell me. And what were the laws for which they were detained, specific provisions?
8. Med shot, end of meeting

STORYLINE

China today (13 Aug) rejected the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination’s allegation that the State party had turned the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region into “something that resembled a massive internment camp shrouded in secrecy, a no rights zone.”

On Friday (10 Aug) the Committee’s Co-Rapporteur for China, Gay Mcdougall, had expressed concerned “at the many numerous and credible reports that we have received that in the name of combatting religious extremism and maintaining social stability, the state party has turned the Uyghur Autonomous Region into something that resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy, a sort of a no rights zone, and that members of the Uyghur minority, along with others who are identified as Muslim, are being treated as enemies of the State based solely on their ethno-religious identity.”

Today, the Chinese representative, Lianhe Hu, said “the allegation that millions of Uyghur people were imprisoned in the re-education centre is completely not true. The government of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region guarantees its citizens’ rights to have religious freedom, and guarantees the exercise of religious activities. Xinjing is an autonomous region that has its own right to establish regional laws based on its regional situation. Xinjiang keeps its fight against terrorism, extremism, and separatism. It disagrees with targeting specific ethnic groups in the context of anti-terrorism, anti-extremism, anti-separatism specifically.”

In her reply, Mcdougall said, “to say that they don’t violate the rights of minorities and detainees does not prove anything. We have to have more than a denial of the allegations. I heard a flat denial of the allegation about detention in the Uyghur area, but I didn’t hear, you said that I was false, the millions, then, how many were there? Please tell me. And what were the laws for which they were detained, specific provisions?

Committee Experts, in the dialogue that followed, congratulated China for creating extraordinary prosperity and lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, including in the eight multi-ethnic provinces and regions, but remained concerned over the growing inequality, particularly for ethnic minorities who continued to disproportionally experience poverty.